Francisco Santos Calderón, 41 years
old, was elected Vice President of Colombia on the same national
ballot as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez in May 2002.
In March 2000, Mr. Santos left Colombia after receiving multiple
death threats by the guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC). He moved to Madrid, Spain where he was a journalist
for two years for the daily newspaper, El País.
Previously, Vice President Santos was the editor of El Tiempo,
Colombia's largest daily newspaper. There he wrote a weekly column
in which he often spoke out against kidnappings and massacres
and called for civil society to take a more active role in finding
peaceful solutions to the problems facing Colombia.
He has stridently condemned the intolerance and murderous acts
of extremists from both left and right.
In 1990, Mr. Santos was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar, then leader
of the Medellín drug cartel. Along with ten other journalists,
he was held for nearly eight months in an ultimately unsuccessful
attempt to extort a promise from then President César Gaviria
that the Colombian Government would not extradite drug traffickers
to the United States.
Once released, the Vice President spent a year at Harvard University
as a Nieman fellow. In 1992, he returned to Bogotá and
founded País Libre (Free Nation), an organization to assist
the victims of kidnapping and their families. Through País
Libre, Mr. Santos also promoted civil society resistance, protests
and marches against kidnapping and terrorism, culminating in the
massive 1999 march involving millions of Colombians rallying under
the banner "No Más!" (No More!)
In the late 1980s, Mr. Santos taught journalism and U.S.-Latin
American relations at various Colombian universities, including
Universidad Central, Universidad Javeriana and Universidad Jorge
Tadeo Lozano.
Vice President Santos received the Paul Harris Medal, Rotary
International's highest award. He studied journalism and Latin
American studies at the University of Kansas and the University
of Texas at Austin.
